


(You've Got a) Habit of Leaving

by Mireille



Series: Leaving is all I've ever known before [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M, past Xander/Anya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-24
Updated: 2006-07-24
Packaged: 2019-03-13 10:17:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13568502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: "You've got a habit of leaving me / And you've got a habit of deserting me..."





	(You've Got a) Habit of Leaving

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary both courtesy of David Bowie.

Giles had known when he'd come to Sunnydale that it would only be temporary. Even before he'd met Buffy, before he'd known more about her than what was contained in the Council's abnormally-thin file on her, he hadn't liked the reason his relocation to California wouldn't be permanent--and now, of course, the prospect wasn't something he could bear to think about for long--but he _had_ looked forward to eventually returning home and resuming his former life. 

He'd looked forward to it, that was, until he found himself actually facing the return trip, quietly making travel arrangements and working out how best to leave Buffy with all the reference material she might need. That was the only real purpose he served these days, when he was any use at all, and once Willow finished scanning in his library so that she could find any information Buffy needed, he wouldn't even need to do that. 

Buffy would be fine without him, of that he was certain. She had Riley to train with; Willow's magical talents far surpassed his even at his best; the electronic version of his library would let Willow and Xander find anything Buffy needed to know. She'd moved beyond the need for a Watcher, and as neither of them worked for the Council any longer, there was no reason for him to stay here. 

He'd miss her, would miss them all, but they had their own lives to lead--and perhaps, now that Buffy didn't need him any longer, so did he. And, most importantly, this was infinitely preferable to any of the previous times he'd imagined leaving Sunnydale.

***

Reasons to stay in Sunnydale:

1\. _Dawn._
     (But Willow and Tara had moved into the house to look after her, and she also had Xander and Anya, and therefore, it seemed unlikely that Dawn would need him.) 
2\. _The Magic Box_. 
     (Which had thrived this summer in Anya's hands, while he compiled the data Willow needed for the robot. He suspected that he'd make more money if he stayed away and let Anya make all the decisions, and if he left Sunnydale, he wouldn't be looking for something to fill his days.) 
3\. _The Council._
     (But he'd already planned to resign; he doubted Quentin Travers would dare send Buffy another Watcher unless she asked, and so the Council would never have to know what had happened, not as long as the robot worked. That was important, because he suspected that without Buffy, the Council would arrange to have Faith eliminated so that a new Slayer would be called, but what the Council didn't know would hurt no one.) 
4\. _The robot, or at least what it represented._
     (But as long as Willow kept it operational, no one would look any further than that... and besides, he couldn't bear to be in the same room with the thing for more than a few minutes.) 
5\. _Being with the people who mourned Buffy as much as he did._
     (But he couldn't rid himself of the feeling that he needed to hold himself together for their sakes, that they needed him to be not a friend, but an adult, and he couldn't keep that up forever.) 

Reasons to leave:

1\. For some reason, the others--or rather, Xander--seemed to feel the need to look after him, to keep him company, and Giles couldn't ask him--or any of them--to put his life on hold for his sake. 
    (That had never been put to the test. He never had to ask, had only to open the door when Xander knocked. For his own comfort, he tried not to over-examine his reasons for not suggesting more strenuously that Xander go home to spend time with Anya.) 
2\. This had always been only temporary. 
    (Any thought that staying here might--that this could be where he belonged, even in the absence of Buffy--was an illusion. He would be, at best, an afterthought, and perhaps that was as it should be.) 

***

If he flew in just for the wedding, there would be no harm done. He could reassure himself that he'd been right, and Buffy was thriving now that he wasn't trying to catch her every time she stumbled (every time she fell, and he knew himself well enough to know that he'd never get past the need to make up for not being able to catch her, the one time she truly needed it). And then he would go back to the airport and fly out again, without even spending a night in Sunnydale. His travel agent had planned the itinerary for him; it would mean he'd spend the better part of thirty-six hours on a plane, but he'd waved away her concerns.

If he stayed the night, he'd stay longer, and he'd worked too hard convincing himself that he'd done the right thing for Buffy by leaving to let himself be dissuaded now. 

But he could go, and wish Xander and Anya all the happiness they deserved, and then come home again--and hope that this time, the congratulations rang a bit less false than they had when they had announced their engagement. He'd _meant_ them sincerely at the time, but in retrospect, his lukewarm enthusiasm had sounded more like an attempt to frighten Xander away from marriage than like genuine well-wishes. 

Xander hadn't said anything about it. He probably hadn't even noticed, or if he had, would never have bothered questioning Giles' motives. All the same, _Giles_ had noticed, and if he really wished Xander (and Anya, of course) well, perhaps the best thing to do would be to stay away altogether. 

In the end, he sent a gift instead: appropriately impersonal, and expensive enough to delight Anya and make up for his absence.

He'd never go back to Sunnydale, he decided. Buffy wasn't the only one who was better off without him there.

***

"...this time?" Dawn was asking as Giles passed her partly-open door.

He would have barely registered it if he hadn't also caught Xander's reply. "He came back because of the First Evil, not because he missed us." 

There were other, far more important things to think about, but for several days afterward, he found his thoughts returning to Xander's words, and the ill-concealed bitterness behind them. 

Somehow, he didn't think Xander was talking about Spike or Andrew.

***

"In a hurry to get out of here?" Xander's tone was light, but there was something in the set of his mouth that--

That Giles was reading too much into. Xander was exhausted, probably still in physical pain, and grieving; that was all. "My flight leaves at six," he said. He was going back to England ahead of the others; his credit cards wouldn't cover that many airline tickets, and he needed to meet with the Council's bankers to arrange access to the accounts. 

"Yeah." Xander shrugged, and Giles felt, as he did far too often with Xander--as he always had, since that summer they'd spent arguing about cricket and eating takeaways and pretending they weren't both feeling utterly lost without Buffy--that he was only privy to part of the conversation. 

"I'll be back in a few days. I'm not abandoning you to cope with Andrew alone indefinitely," he added with a slight smile. 

"I know." Xander's voice was a little less of a monotone, and Giles wondered if perhaps he'd managed to say the right thing after all. "Got to get started finding all those brand-new Slayers," Xander went on, and Giles nodded. 

"The sooner the better," he agreed. 

"You'd better hurry." Xander picked Giles' bag up from the floor, handing it to him. "You don't want to miss your flight." 

That trace of animation in Xander's voice was gone, and he didn't look Giles in the eye. Giles would have asked him where, precisely, that conversation had gone wrong, but he really did have to leave for the airport. When he got back, he told himself. 

But by the time he got back, he'd realized that now was not the time for him to try to have a serious conversation with Xander, and so he let it go.

***

Laughter wasn't quite the reaction he'd been hoping for.

"I assure you, I was quite sincere," Giles said stiffly, taking another step back from the still-snickering Xander.

For a moment, he'd been certain Xander was, as well, that by some miracle he'd managed to correctly judge Xander's thoughts, and wait long enough that Xander's grief for Anya wasn't overriding everything else he might feel, and actually _get the bloody words out coherently_ , which he'd started to abandon all hope of doing. 

Now he realized Xander had just been startled. Giles had finally got Xander to himself for a moment, and threatened Andrew with fates worse than death if he rang Giles' mobile phone for anything short of an apocalypse, and _clearly_ \--if not bluntly--explained that the invitation to dinner that he'd just given Xander was not, in fact, "old friends catching up," or a business dinner, or anything other than a date. Xander had blinked at him for a moment, and then smiled, and Giles had been reassured. 

And then the smile had turned into laughter, and Giles was... he wasn't certain how to react. It wasn't mocking laughter; Xander seemed genuinely amused by something, and Giles couldn't fathom what. 

"Sorry," Xander said at last. "I, uh... okay, I admit that laughing in your face wasn't exactly the right way to handle that, but...."

"But what?" Giles snapped. He at least deserved to know why Xander had found him so ridiculous, when Giles had been nearly certain that Xander would be, at the very least, tempted to accept the invitation. 

"I'm leaving in the morning," he said. 

"I did know that." It was one of the reasons he'd forced himself to act--he either did so now, or waited another three months, until Xander was back in England. And that would be Christmas, and the girls would be there, and so six months would be even more likely. 

He hadn't wanted to wait another six months, not when he'd realized recently that he'd been waiting years. 

"Yeah," Xander said, his voice just as sharp as Giles'. "I figured. I mean, it's not like _you_ can take off these days, just to make sure things don't actually go _right_ for a change. So waiting until right before I go back to Africa? Makes perfect sense."

"That isn't what--" he began, but then just shook his head. That hadn't been his intention, ever. He'd gone because he thought he should; he'd gone because of Buffy; he'd gone because he was afraid he would be an obstacle to Xander's happiness; he'd gone because he was afraid he wouldn't be. He'd never gone because things were going well. 

But that didn't mean that it hadn't looked that way to Xander, and so he sighed. "That isn't what I intended," he amended himself. 

Xander shrugged. "I know it wasn't," he said. "Tell Andrew I'll get myself to the airport, okay?"

Without waiting for an answer, he walked through the double doors that led to the front office, and then to the street.

***

"I thought of something the other day," Xander said, which was completely out of the blue, considering that they were discussing deploying additional personnel--some of the better-trained Slayers, for example--in Africa, since there seemed to be finding a disproportionate number of Slayers there, and Xander was far busier than anyone else.

Xander hadn't even met the girl whose qualifications they were discussing now, so Giles had no idea what he might have been thinking of. 

When he said as much, Xander glanced down at the folder on the table between them and shook his head. "Later," he said, and they went back to work. There was none of the stiff formality Giles had feared after Xander's last trip to England, and he wasn't sure whether that was a good sign for their chances of salvaging their friendship, or whether it simply meant that in the end, Xander hadn't cared all that much. Either way, at least it meant the work could get done. 

Only when they'd agreed on the six young women who would be deployed throughout the continent did Xander bring it up again. "What I was thinking," he said, "you know, earlier?" Giles inclined his head slightly, and Xander went on. "I figured I ought to give you a little credit for coming back. Okay, yeah, apocalypses, but still, you did come back." 

"I did," Giles agreed. "Even though I should never have gone in the first place." It hadn't ever been about Xander, but he'd had to admit that the situation had made his decision easier. 

"Also, you sent us a _toast rack_ ," Xander said. "What were we supposed to do with a toast rack? And don’t tell me 'rack toast,' because in America, we put toast on a plate where it belongs." With a wry smile that stopped just this side of bitterness, he added, "I mean, we... we sent it back, but that doesn't mean you're off the hook for the toast rack." 

"Perhaps," Giles said, deciding to take a risk, "I was trying to introduce you to another custom of the civilized world."

Xander glared at him for a second. Two. Three, and Giles was about to apologize when Xander grinned at him. "It's better than cricket, I guess," he said, then, a bit more seriously, "Look. We kind of... there's some talking stuff we have to do."

"Yes," Giles agreed reluctantly. "I suppose there is." 

"Like, just for example, what would you say if I told you I'm sick of living out of a suitcase, and I want to come back to England for good?" 

"That depends," Giles said. "Are you telling me as your employer, or as..." He trailed off, not certain how to finish the sentence. 

"As my boss, first." 

"I'd tell you to see Andrew about the paperwork," he said. "Is this theoretical, or--"

"I want to hear the other answer first."

Giles took a moment to consider. Having Xander here, trying to sort out whether this attraction would lead to anything deeper, could be... complicated. Messy. Awkward. Potentially unpleasant. Perhaps not as much so now as a few years ago, but still....

But still, there had been a few months when they'd been comfortable with one another, as comfortable as he could remember being with anyone. "I'd say... 'Good,' I think," he said quietly. 

Xander nodded, picking up the folders from the table. He didn’t say anything else about it, and Giles decided the conversation had been purely hypothetical. When he left the office that night without hearing from Xander again, he was sure of it. 

The next night, when Xander turned up on his doorstep with Chinese takeaway, he was a great deal less certain. And when he saw what else Xander was holding--

"A loaf of bread?"

"I don't want to watch cricket. Ever again," Xander said. "And since you keep insisting you're going to teach me your strange foreign ways, I brought toast. Future toast, at least." 

\--he wasn't certain that it had been hypothetical, at all. 

He could still walk away from this. Nothing irrevocable had been said or done, and he could step back, apologize, and avoid the inevitable complicated messiness that was bound to come of this, even if everything worked out well in the end. Not that it _would_ work out well in the end; he'd lived long enough to know that without a doubt. 

Or he could take the cartons of takeaway from Xander's hands and step aside to let him in. 

"That's rather an advanced lesson," he said. "We'll start with something simple, like not letting the egg drop soup get cold."

**Author's Note:**

> [me on tumblr](https://mireille719.tumblr.com)


End file.
